Canon G11 and G1x cameras, compared

UPDATE: I have returned this camera. The image quality is fantastic, but the focusing just too problematic. While I am not thrilled with the size of a DSLR, that’s probably my only option at this point. I may get an EOS Rebel T3i or a Nikon D5100 but I really would prefer a mirrorless camera.

G1x Summary: professional image quality in a super-compact size, resulting in some engineering and performance compromises. Worst feature is slow focus and very poor macro performance. Best feature is high-grade wheel, button and dial controls (essential functions are not hidden in a menu) plus Canon’s fantastic articulated viewscreen.

I’m a huge fan of the Canon Powershot line, and especially of their articulated viewfinder screen. I’ve been using a G11 for a couple years now and it is a damn fine camera. To the extent that if it broke I’d just replace it with a G12 right away, probably. But Canon (and a lot of other manufacturers) is aware that there’s a whole untapped market of people who want big-camera image capability in a small camera.

My hands are hurting enough these days that holding a big DSLR steady isn’t really an option. And anyway I need to be able to fit cameras into my backpack because I have a very bicycle-centric lifestyle. So when I heard that Canon was going to stuff a DSLR-sized sensor into a slightly hypertrophic G12 body, I started checking out the piggy bank. The G1x was introduced in February, and after reading four months of reviews I ordered one.

In this comparison I won’t be trying to reproduce the fine technical detail of dpreview articles; see the links at the bottom to go read those. Instead, I’m going to write about the subjective experience of using the cameras.

I’ve been shooting for a long time (I got my first light meter in about 1967) and one camera I really miss is my old Rolleiflex Twin Lens Reflex. I used it for weddings and candids because it allowed you to hold the camera at waist-level and look at the camera while shooting candid pictures. There were two benefits to this approach; you got a child’s eye view, and since you weren’t looking at your subjects they ignored you and just went about what they were doing. The result was wonderful candid pictures.

You can use Canon cameras that have articulated viewfinders in the same way, and also to shoot over your head and around corners. And, they’re superb for macro because (if you’re not as flexible as you used to be) you can look down on the camera to shoot horizontal-angle macro. Or, cat’s eye view for pet pictures; the possibilities are endless. Other manufacturers have articulated viewfinders but Canon has the best design. It’s incredibly handy, and I will hardly even consider a camera now that does not have one.

Both these cameras also have eye-level, optical viewfinders. You will see a lot of complaints about these viewfinders in reviews, but I use them all the time to get quick candids or for very simple shots. Yes the lens is visible in one corner but what of it? I think people need to realize what’s been crammed into these camera bodies. The optical viewfinder is a convenience, and if it were elevated higher there would be more parallax and the camera would be bulkier. Everything in camera design is a trade-off.

The G11 has a tough magnesium body; the G1x has a metal frame (probably also magnesium) with plastic components. As a former camera repairman, this doesn’t worry me as much as it does some people. You can make an incredibly tough object bonding plastic and metal together. It weighs only slightly more than the G11 which is amazing.

Nighttime picture with Canon G1x; click to embiggen

The heart of a digital camera is its imaging sensor. There are a lot of cameras out there with “12 mpx” sensors that are physically very tiny, and the picture quality shows it. All other things being equal, the more pixels you get from a given sensor, the worse problem you have with signal-to-noise ratio. In other words, the shadows get muddy. It’s more complicated than that but when it comes to physical sensor size, bigger is better. And the sensor in the G1x is six times bigger than the sensor in the G11. It’s even bigger than the 4/3 sensor Olympus and Pentax Panasonic are using in their flagship products right now. This gives the camera’s DIGIC-5 processor more photon-gathering CMOS goodness to play with. The result is super-clean images with non-muddy shadows. Since I like to do nighttime photography, that’s important.

The exposure compensation dial – a real, knurled aluminum dial on both cameras – allows for two stops on the G11 and (joy!) 3 stops on the G12. If you know why exposure compensation is needed, you’ll appreciate that feature not being hidden under a bunch of pesky menus. It’s fine to use automatic exposure, and cameras are getting smarter about it. But even the camera’s processor is no substitute for your brain.

The G1x autofocus is easier to fool than the G11; this is a consequence of packing in the big sensor. Learn its modes, and pay attention. Stop and check your photos. I turned off the focus-assist light because it annoys people… which makes the autofocus even slower. When your subject is people, use the face-tracking mode. But shut it off when faces are not involved; the DIGIC-5 sometimes suffers from pareidolia. Both cameras have manual focus, but I really wish Canon would re-think how manual focus is controlled. I’d rather have it controlled by the front scroll wheel; manual exposure control could be done on the back panel. One nice feature is an enlarged focus zone that pops up while doing manual focus.

The G11 has celebrated macro capability, but the G1x basically can’t do macro at all. This is not just because Canon decided to be a bunch of ol’ meanies; macro mode gets considerably more complicated (bigger, heavier) as sensor size goes up. As I said earlier, camera design is compromise. Canon makes a two-element close-up accessory lens and I will probably end up getting one. But this is an important difference between the cameras and if you don’t have another way to do macro, don’t get the G1x. Also be aware this isn’t a super-zoom lens – it’s only 4x. Again, compromises… super-zoom lenses lose quality.

Image Stabilization in both cameras is good but the G1x is quite amazing. Check out this picture of Oscar, handheld from 6 or 8 feet away at 1/20 second; it’s sharp as a tack. The DIGIC-5 also recognized his feline face and focused felicitously. Keep in mind that all IS systems are tracking camera movement in real time, so they necessarily lag a bit behind that phenomena. In other words, other things being equal a tripod will always be sharper. I will be writing a more detailed post about IS vs Tripod, sometime soon.

The very first evening picture I took with the G1x. Click to embiggen.

The G1x has a pop-up flash but I seldom use flash. It seems to expose accurately and intelligently. There’s a full hot-shoe with connectivity to Canon flash accessories, so if you set up elaborate flash you won’t be disappointed.

Both cameras have beefy connections for wrist or neck straps. You can get to perdition in your own way but I’ve repaired a lot of cameras that were damaged when the neck strap caught on something and yanked the camera off an elevated surface onto the ground. It’s wrist-straps for me. I have often thought I’d like to have a cool-looking leather shoulder-holster for my G11. Or maybe for a Canon S-100.

G11 has an automatic lens cap; the G1x has an annoyingly large clunky clip-on lens cap that can get lost. Again, this is a matter of compromise. But I cannot figure out why camera manufacturers went away from slip-on lens caps. A metal slip-on cap gave excellent protection to the lens and was easy to use. Just drop it in your pocket when shooting and slip it back on when you’re done – easy! Clip-on caps come off in your backpack and allow the lens to get scratched; I hate them. (Are you listening to this random guy on the Internet, camera manufacturers of the world? Fear my wrath!)

Get an extra battery or two – the aftermarket ones are about six bucks. Get the high-speed SD chip, especially if you ever shoot RAW. (Both cameras go RAW). And make it a big high-speed chip. Or chips.

The G1x has better grip, which is mostly a function of it being a little bigger, and its handling is a little bit better (I’ve accidentally triggered menus on the G11). The parentage of G11 and G12 in the G1x is obvious, and if you use one you will feel comfortable right away using the other. This is a non-trivial benefit if you carry both cameras. (You do carry two cameras to a shoot, don’t you? Your client may not know you switched to your backup camera but they’ll sure as hell know if you didn’t have one.)

I never had any complaints about the shutter release in the G11 but the G1x has an even better one. Clearly, Canon considered carefully. Both set focus and exposure at half-press.

I set both cameras to use the custom-set button to grab a white-balance. It saves huge amounts of time in Photoshop or Gimp. Both cameras can shoot video but the G1x shoots high-def video in full stereo with wind-noise canceling and some kind of digital/optical steadicam function. I might play with this sometime but it wasn’t a factor in my purchase of the camera.

The bottom line is that I often take pictures where even the G11 is pushed to its limit – indoor group shots for instance. Because of its huge image sensor the G1x will be able to handle these situations easily. Because they are so similar, I wondered if I might end up carrying the G1x all the time and my G11 would sit at home all forlorn and lonesome. Both cameras are fantastically versatile but each camera has its strengths, and for daily use I’ll probably carry the G11.

NOTES:

DPReviews of Canon G11, G12 and G1x. DPReviews does great, technical, multi-page reviews that are a great place to start when considering any camera.

I did an ISO and noise-correction series for the G1x, all pasted together for you to see. Click the picture at right to go to Picasa where you can download the full-size composite.

Here’s an individual photo at ISO 12,800. It looks OK, but up to ISO 1600 the noise-reduction is just great.

I have to politely disagree here. (Disclaimer: I do not know everything, or even a lot, about photography, despite being able to develop and print B&W film)
As I see it, the reason SLR’s were so big was because they had (a)good lenses and (b)the mechanism to flip the mirror up out of the way to expose the film. Modern mini digital cameras do not need the latter, since the electronics transfers the image to the screen on the back. So there is really no need for that honkin’ big case. I use a Canon Powershot A1100IS, 4X zoom, 12.1 megapixels, works fine as far as I can tell.
A bigger lens means more light-gathering, faster shutter speed, but the wieght penality is huge. I suspect the reason for big cameras is the same one as for big guns, big cars, big power tools — making up for something else not-so-big.

I’m not talking about the size of the camera; I’m talking about the physical size of the imaging sensor and the relationship of that size to the number of megapixels extracted from it. You can get 12mpx from a chip the size of your little fingernail but your signal-to-noise ratio will be awful.

This will matter very little when there is a lot of signal, as on a sunny day. But when shooting at dusk or at night, it will matter a lot. You have encountered the same principle when you buy an amplifier: if it says “100 watts peak power” that means just about nothing.

The same principle was always true in a less complicated way with film: you could get a lot more information out of 6cm than you could 110 – but it required a correspondingly larger lens and body.

The G1x crams a professional-DSLR sized imaging sensor into a camera not much bigger than one of the larger point-and-shoot cameras. It’s a neat trick that required making choices about the lens size, camera body size, power usage, etc. CMOS sensors use less power which helps.

That big sensor gives an improved s/n ratio for the image processor to work with and the result is very clean images in low light.

Of course there are people who buy big professional equipment to compensate for something. But there’s a reason you see those humongous cameras and lenses at press conferences and sporting events. Digital hasn’t changed that.

UPDATE: The camera has fantastic image quality, but (as I hoped would not be the case) the focus problems are too severe. I am going to try and return it, and get a Canon EOS Rebel T3i instead. That would be a bulkier camera than I wanted, but the same big imaging sensor and a well-proven focus mechanism.

For the record, Pentax does not use 4/3 sensors. The sensor in its DSLRs is actually larger than the G1X’s.

Thank you for the correction: the Pentax K-5 for example is indeed a hunk ‘o burning digital imaging love. And one that should not be overlooked by anyone searching for a top-quality DSLR. I’ll correct the post.

I think you meant to say Panasonic.

You are being kind, and it raises interesting questions on the nature of error. Had I not been executing a brain fart, I would have intended to day Panasonic. But I typed what I intended; it was just wrong. Though I certainly knew on some level that Panasonic is four-thirdsy and Pentax uses mighty imaging chips. It’s all very confusing, the brain.